terrible things
by trypophobica
Summary: "sometimes, life can do terrible things." / never being good enough, never being perfect, it can be a lot to bear. one sided kames, kenlos bromance, with future jarlos and one sided jagan. formerly "pretty". / named after the mayday parade song
1. pretty

**a/n: **i wrote this on my phone.

no, seriously.

are you guys proud? idek how many words it is but it's a new writing style and i like it a lot actually

it took _effort_, eww

have fun reading it, and if you like it[or not] please don't be ashamed to drop a review. i love you guys!

* * *

"_Now son, I'm only telling you this because sometimes, life can do **terrible things**._"

James knows, has known since he was young: life is easy if you're pretty. He also knew society had a very volatile definition of the word— you could have a perfect face and a perfect body but they could still call you ugly on the inside. Beauty was a wholesome thing, James learned, it was something that was natural and artificial, purposeful or accidental. He knew beauty wasn't always a petite frame and long eyelashes, that in order to be considered truly beautiful, you had to be pretty on the inside, too.

And that's why James knew he was ugly. It was a quality that encompassed his very being, something that consumed his personality and reflected on his features. His hazel eyes and perfectly quaffed hair may as well have been made of dirt, the way people acted towards him. James knew he wasn't beautiful because he was ugly on the inside and it reflected on the outside.

(Not to say he was pretty on the outside, either.)

Since James was a kid, with knees scarred white from biking accidents and friendly scuffles gone rough, he had been obsessed with his looks. He would go to work with his mother on the weekends, walked around the labs and watched in curious awe as cosmetics were tested. Beautiful models with blonde hair, flawless skin and bodies lean as a willow tree were decorated with emerald dust; powdered gems of every kind and colour and God, did they look amazing.

"You can't be a Diamond if you don't shine like one, James." His mother would tell him. "We are the epitome of beauty. Us Diamonds, we light up the world with our presence." Her voice is warm-cold affirmation and he never questioned her once, because it was his mom and she was always right.

And she was.

Over time, James understood what it meant to be pretty. He brushed his hair twice a day, showered once— only used his mom's company's products. He sat straight, never chewed with his mouth full, was a true gentleman. But still, over time, his overcritical mom—overcritical society— picked at his confidence, bit by bit, until…

"James, stop wearing your hair like that, you look like an animal."  
"Ey! Diamond! Like the new haircut! Did your mom pick it for you?"  
"James, this is just a simple quadratic equation. Are you really too dense to figure it out?"  
(That one had really struck a nerve. It wasn't that he was dense, his brain was just occupied with ugly, ugly.)  
"James, you are **not **wearing guyliner to the hockey game. They already think you're gay enough, okay?"  
"Hey, fag! You're pretty good at doing makeup— I almost can't tell how ugly you are!"

…He was the only one left who believed in himself.

The comments were fine at first, just a joke, right? He was carbon. He could take it. But they got worse, worse, worse, slicing at him, black and blue, black and blue, driving him to insanity. Black and blue, that's all he was. A shadow.

It wasn't like James never tried. He tried so hard to be perfect, to be pretty. But it only seemed like the harder he tried, the more it slipped from his grasp. Over time, he learned his strive was absolutely futile, as every attempt he made was shot completely to hell. Sure, he was talented, he had looks, he had a near-perfect GPA and an IQ of 140.

(That was nothing, though, _right_?)

He was _average_. Logan had an IQ of 130, but he had a 4.0 average and straight As. So he was already down in the smart department. He obviously was charming, but he was a hopeless, antisocial outcast when compared to Carlos, who was practically a social phoenix. And of course, he was absolutely incompetent when it came to athletics and talent. Kendall was captain of the hockey team— **and **he'd gotten them a fast pass to Los Angeles. James had ridden his way to the big times on the shoulders of someone else's blinding talent, and all he'd had to show for 16 years of tribulations was a huge sign marked "I.O.U.".

He wasn't the smartest, the most loveable, the most talented. Hell, he had watched helplessly as Kendall, Carlos and Logan stole away everything he'd ever wanted. They stripped him of all that he had, that he needed, except one thing: _himself_.

(_and that was all he was ever going to have_.)

* * *

**a/n: **and there you have it.

please tell me what you think, no ones opinion is more important to me than yours, okay? _you matter_, and i want to know what's going through your mind, what went through your mind, when you read this little ficlet.

peace out, i love you guys.


	2. perfect

**a/n:** ...

* * *

"_So don't fall in love, there's just_ **too much** to lose_,_

_if given the choice, then I'm begging you, choose to walk away._"

Kendall knows what perfection is; he breathes it in, feels it thrum in his bones and blast his retinas with strobing club lights. Perfection is all around in Los Angeles, and it resides in everything around him, from the skinny-waisted, appetite-less girls to the muscular, leather-clad motorcyclists that are always there and gone in the blink of an eye, leaving behind not a trace. He feels the perfection as an aura around him; it's in James' smile, the twinkle in Logan's eyes, the spring in Carlos' step. It's all around, thick, dense, suffocating.

He can't help but feel out of place; because he is a flaw in a perfect world.

**/**

The first time Kendall is told he's ugly is by his dad.

"Kendall, get up here!" He's sitting on the couch, staring at the TV with technicolor seeping from his dull eyes. His ears vaguely register the sound of his dad yelling for him and he inwardly groans, pulling himself to his feet and rubbing his eyes sleepily. He pulls a tattered grey blanket off of his lega and stretches quickly before hurrying to the source of the noise.

"Yeah, dad?" He asks sleepily. His dad has his back to Kendall, but is holding a trashbag in one hand and a leather belt in the other, and this sight alone is enough to make Kendall stand at full attention.

"Ken," He says sweetly, honey-sticky voice clogging up Kendall's air-pipes; suddenly breathing is hard. "Didn't I tell you to take out the trash at two?" Kendall nods fearfully, looking down at his watch and ohgod it's 2:10. Kendall gulps and apologies cascade his mouth, he hurries to his dad's left side, where the bag is held, but his dad spins around and Kendall's recoiling from the sting of leather on skin.

"Don't disobey me again, Kendall." The monster in front of him says, wrapping the belt around the 9-year-old's neck with ravenous ferocity. Kendall's lungs implode.

Just as stars begin to dance across the sky, Kendall's dad removes the belt from Kendall's neck, and the blond child is gasping and gulping for air on the ground; but there's no such thing as patience in the Knight household, so it's no surprise to Kendall when he's roughly pulled to his feet and the trashbag is shoved into his hand.

"Hurry, you ugly shit." His dad growled as he hurries off with the bag.

Kendall doesn't even flinch.

**/**

The first time Kendall hates himself, it's because of Logan.

They're at hockey practice, doing drills over, over, over and Logan's slightly off his game today. He's fallen a couple of times and his focus doesn't seem 100%. Kendall notices, but, chalking it up to anxiety over the big math test they have tomorrow, he ignores it.

They continue doing drills for another two hours and Kendall notices Logan's performance worsening as it goes, and the worse Logan does, the more Jak and Zett laugh at him. Kendall's been told by James more than once to let Logan fight his own battles, so he doesn't interfere.

After practice, Kendall stays out on the rink for an extra half hour to practice his shots, then goes into the locker room. As soon as the door's open, though, he hears the unsettling sound of lockers rattling.

"What's wrong, fag? Can't take it?" Another slam resounds through the locker room, and the force of it is enough to make Kendall jump.

"Look at him, Jak! He's practically shaking!" Slam.

"Aw, poor Logie. Can't handle yourself, can you? Where's your white Knight now?" **slam**.

"He'll come.." Kendall hears Logan's weak, gurgly voice and cringes. He's smaller than both Jak and Zett, he knows going in there is suicide. He can't get beat up more than he already does("Coward," his dad calls.), he just _can't_.

So he turns tail and leaves, the sounds of Logan's anguished cries fading behind him.

And it was at that moment that Kendall decided he was the worst human being to ever live.

**/**

The second time Kendall hates himself, it's because of James.

Since the incident with Logan in the locker room, Kendall makes it a point to be there for his friends. He's been doing a better job at being the White Knight, at swooping in saving his friends when they need him.

James was always the hardest to defend, because he never accepted help, his heart swollen with pride and righteousness. Each time Kendall tried to defend James, fight off his impending enemies, fend off words like 'fag' and 'fairy-boy', James' walls only rose higher.

It takes a really strong bomb to break down a wall.

When Kendall finds James, he's curled up in the bathroom with the door locked; pitiful, choked-back sobs quietly slipping out from the cracks of the doorknob.

Kendall spent an hour trying to coax James out, then another hour searching for the bathroom's key. When he didn't find it, he threw caution to the wind, thought _fuck it _and kicked the door open. He found James in the bathtub, with tears streaming down his bruised face and a razor in his finger-pads. (Kendall was relieved to see his skin free of cuts.)

Kendall took the liberty of removing the blade from James' grasp and promptly flinging it out the window. James' lashes fluttered like a wet butterfly, sending tears and carbon shards flying into Kendall's heart.

Kendall pulled James into a hug, not daring to breathe, speak, move in fear of breaking the fragile gem in his arms. James sobs into Kendall's arms, soaking his shirt with transparent blood, wounds from words gushing.

"James, who-"

"I don't want to talk about-"

"No!" Kendall growled, completely unwilling to put up with this very same answer for the 50th time. "James, I'm sorry you're hurt, but you're not **God**, okay? You're allowed to have _help_. It's _okay _to tell me what's going on, that's why I'm your **friend**, okay?! That's why we're even _in _LA to begin with!"

James flinches, pulling away from Kendall roughly and flattening himself against the other side of the bathtub. Guilt trails it's claws down Kendall's back, causing the hairs on the nape of his neck to stand on end.

"Um.." Kendall fumbles awkwardly, trying to find a way to apologise. James shakes his head and whimpers, more tears running along the discoloured, bruised skin. He tried to stutter out a word, but apparently the memories attached to it were making it difficult. Kendall watched intently and encouragingly nodded towards James.

"Wayne-Wayne," James chokes out, and Kendall's up in a flash.

**/**

When he gets back, his knuckles are red and raw and he has a shiner of his own now, but each drop of blood that trickles from his lip makes his spirits rise up higher than the empire state building. Kendall comes back to 2J and finds James buried in his own bed, a small lump underneath the covers rising and falling. Kendall doesn't even question why he's not using his own bed when it's in the same room, he just saunters past James' bed and sits down next to the lump in his covers.

The James-hump stiffens for a second, then continues rising and falling. Kendall chuckles at his friend's horrible acting skills.

"James," he says, starting to peel back the covers, staining white with red. James pulls them back up over his head and curls up tighter, snuggling to the other side of the bed.

"G'way." James says, muffled.

Kendall laughs and kicks his shoes off, sitting closer to James. "G'day to you, too." He jokes, trying again to pry away the cocoon James is hiding under. The air is thick with heat and humidity.

The covers come off to reveal a very unhappy James curled up with his head under the pillow.

"Kendall, you're the last person I want to see right now." He groans, pulling his limbs into his chest. Kendall frowns, hurt picking at his heart.

"Why?"

James mutters something incoherent.

"What?"

"Wayne-Wayne." James says, and it's not making much sense to Kendall.

"What about him?"

"He found out." James rolls over, and wow, is he trying to make the bed swallow him?

"Found out what, James?" Kendall snaps, because Kendall has no patience for James' vagueness.

"That I'm in love with you, okay?" James snaps loudly, pulling the covers back over himself as if it's a shield(but it can't hide the shudders of sobs from trained green eyes) and shuffling to the very edge of the bed. Kendall blinks, because DAMN, he wasn't expecting that. Times when James' touches lingered just a little too long or when his words were just a little too tender flash behind his retinas and suddenly, he's got a JACKASS sign nailed to his forehead.

"Uhh.. oh. So?" He tries the nonchalant approach, the "I'm-not-going-to-reject-you-out-loud-so-let's-cha nge-the-subject" approach. But really though, it's not his fault if he's not gay, because there's _Jo_, and he's so, so, so in love with her, he might as well be Jo-sexual.

"Ugh." James-duvet-lump grunts. "If you're gonna change the subject, you might as well just get out of here."

"James-"

"Go."

"It's not my fault-"

"Go!" Kendall does as told, his mind is haywire as he high-tails it the fuck out of James room, trying to ignore the throbbing in his knuckles and the broken sobs he's fleeing from.

Kendall feels like a heart-eating monster.

Maybe because he is one.

**/**

The first time that Kendall kisses Camille, they're both on the edge.

Kendall's sitting on the hood of his car, parked on the flat tippytop of a hill, watching navy ink and nectarine juice bleed across the sky. He feels the warm hum of the car's engine beneath him, enjoys the vibrations resounding through his skin. The air is heavy with the scent of dead grass and salt, and Kendall can't help but think it smells just a little bit like home.

It's such a cliché, such a storybook cut-out but it's so true that Kendall drives up here every once in a while to think, clear his mind, drop off the face of his world for hours at a time. His phone's off, but he knows as soon as he turns it on, he'll get hundreds of notifications: calls, texts, IMs from his friends. They were hopeless without him, he knew, but he didn't care right now, simply because Jo didn't care either.

Probably because she dumped him.

He exhales slowly, feels the mold in his heart rustle with the breath. He closes his eyes for a second, and the second turns into a minute, two, ten- the car dips with the weight of another body and the ivy green eyes snap open, and Kendall sees Camille smiling up at him warmly, sadly.

"Fancy seeing you here." She says, her laughter reaches his ears but not her glistening eyes. Kendall just smiles- her eyes remind him of winter soil, crisp and saturated. Camille doesn't even question the lack of response, just blinks away the tears that had welled up in the grottos of her eyes and shuffled closer to Kendall, sharing the sunrise and the shade of the bougainvillea canopies. Kendall puts his arm around her and she blinks appreciatively, black lashes flapping and suddenly they're leaningleaningleaning-

_contact_.

And as he tastes bubblegum lip balm and the warmth of Camille underneath the bougainvillea, Kendall doesn't think being without Jo is that bad.

**/**

The first time Kendall sees Camille kiss Logan, he breaks.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. Kendall counts the stairs as he walks down them, wondering why it's so difficult for people to build stairs with even numbers. Really, is he the only one on this planet that appreciates well-rounded numerals? Shrugging dismissively, he leaps from the second-last step(twenty-two) and continues walking towards the Palmwoods pool with an aloof gait. He's got a single bougainvillea flower clasped between his fingers, it's making a huge mess(he's leaving more petals behind than there probably should even be on the flower), but he thinks the meaning more than makes up for it.

He's going to do it, ask out Camille. It's not like he's nervous about it, he never is- even when he _hasn't_ already spent hours lip-locked with the person.

He saunters out into the lobby and glances around, not seeing Camille. Which is actually extremely strange, considering the fact that the lobby is her favourite place to rehearse. Frowning, Kendall walks out to the pool. She's not there either, but he **does **manage to walk outside just in time to see(and experience) Carlos jumping into the pool from the roof.

As the latino climbs out of the pool, he's faced with a very annoyed(and very _wet_) Kendall. Carlos sheepishly smiles and then(of **course**) tries to dash away, but Kendall grabs him by the hood and yanks him back.

"Carlos-"

"I'm sorry! I warned everyone but I hadn't thought that anyone would walk out!" He cries, writhing in Kendall's grip. The blonde just rolls his eyes, because _really_?

"Have you seen Camille?" Carlos blinks, then nods in confusion.

"Yeah, she's in the lobby."

"Oh. really? I didn't see her." Carlos pulls himself out of Kendall's vice and eyes him strangely.

"Yeah, she's playing tongue hockey with Logan against the wall. Has been for the past hour..ish." Without listening to the rest of Carlos' sentences, Kendall dashes back to the lobby to see Logan being pressed into the wall by none other than Camille, the pair of them very eloquently making out.

The flower falls, wet and forgotten, to the floor.

**/**

(When Kendall was younger, he was told never to run from his problems- but to face them head-on.

He'd never been good at following advice.)

**/**

He combs his bare feet through the pond-water, watching as it swirls and glimmers on his skin in the pale lunar light. He'd ditched his last 'hide-out-for-alone-time' in fear of running into Camille again, and instead was in a community park nearby at midnight, running things through his mind.

He sighs and buries his face in his hands.

He wanted to be perfect so, **so** badly, wanted to be the guy no one rejected, who never broke anything(not even a heart) or who was expendable. But he was the very opposite of that, a swirling, bubbling, kaleidoscopic mess. Fragmented. Broken. Useless.

He hears a noise behind him and turns sharply to look and god _damn_, how many people are going to find his hiding spots for him to be alone? But when it's Carlos and not some random girl(or worse, a not-random girl) coming out of the bushes tentatively, he can't help but be glad.

"Hey, um.." Carlos starts tentaively. "Do you want some company?" Kendall looks back down at the silvery water and nods halfheartedly, not moving a muscle when he feels the bench he's sitting on dip slightly, when he feels a hand on his knee.

"I'm sorry, Kendall." Don't look, don't look. "I didn't know you liked Camille." Okay, now _that_ had Kendall's attention.

Sitting up a little straighter, he says, "You weren't supposed to. How did you?" Carlos shrugs and looks at Kendall out of the corner of his eye.

"I saw it in your eyes." Kendall rolls his eyes at Carlos' lie, because he's not observant, will never be observant, and will never _pass_ for observant. He was more of the aloof type, paying attention to nothing and everything at once was more his style.

"So, Camille told you?'

"Yeah." Carlos smiled sheepishly at Kendall, patting his knee and then pulling away. Kendall relaxes.

"I wonder why." The orange-skinned boy shrugs and looks down at the water with him, taking off his flip-flops and sticking his own feet in the water. "Does it matter?"

"Guess not."

For a while, there's nothing but silence, and all they can do is observe the reflections of the floating white orchids with their trained gazes for what seems like hours(and it isn't). The silence settles on their shoulders, it's in the cool, humid air and in the ocassional sighs they emit, and all they do is think.

(think, think, think, about everything.)

"All I wanted was to be perfect." Kendall whispers to the air.

"Mm?" Carlos doesn't look up from the rippling clarity, but perks up like a bloodhound at attention.

"Nothing."

(_A_ nothing, Kendall thinks. That's all he'll ever be.)

* * *

**a/n: **let me start off by saying: SURPRISE, MUTHAFUCKA

i had _the hardest time_ trying to figure out weather this would have endgame kenlos or endgame kames oh my GOD even as i write this author's note im not entirely sure.. uRGHGH

i seem to like love trianglesquares though, so i dont think this even **is** an endgame. buahhaah

now let me end this by saying, the song 'terrible things' by mayday parade makes me sad. and i love it. and it's beautiful. and i cry when i listen to it. and go listen to it.


End file.
